Developers: 2K Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Confirmed Platforms: XBox 360, PS3, PC
Speculated Release Date: Q4 2009



Not much is not as this time of the plot, although from the teaser that was released with the PS3 version of the game we gain hints that it will be outside of the watery realm the first game was based in. As the first game possessed three different endings it shall be interesting to see how 2K Games incorporates this into the sequel. The series is however rumoured to mimic the GTA series in that it will release a new game every two or three years. It may also mimic it in the fact that each game features a new protagonist.



Quite interesting concept, a sequel that will double as a prequel. Could give us some more info on how anything got into Rapture and the Little Sisters. This can be interpreted in the rising city in the trailer, which resembles Rapture and fits into the Logo of Bioshock. The "bigger surprise" is most likely Rapture rising out of the underground and onto the surface, but who knows, it makes the game a hell of a lot more interesting.

quote Multiplayer for Bioshock 2

Here's your good news for the day. Seems BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams (Xbox 360, PS3) will get what was sorely lacking in the first game. According to a recently found job listings
, the BioShock team is looking for a team who will be responsible for multiplayer gameplay


Leading multiple engineers within a proven team to design and build a network frontend and backend support for an action-packed AAA multiplayer title

• Advising engineers on how to properly architect their systems for optimal multiplayer support
• Extending and enhancing Unreal Engine 3 with proprietary networking tech to address gameplay, performance, platform, production, tools, and QA needs
• Interfacing with Microsoft, Sony, and other providers for matching-making and other services
• Working with the Technical Director, Lead Programmer, and IT Director to plan and execute major changes to core technology or backend services
• Responsible for delivering a robust, scalable, and responsive multiplayer gameplay code and backend services for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 platforms

The BioShock team is betting big on multiplayer and plans to stay at the top of the charts– we're careful about the problems we tackle, innovative in our approach, solid in our implementation, and we polish the heck out of everything we do. Right now we're looking for an exceptional individual to direct the development of this multiplayer experience through a combination of leadership, design, coding, and daily problem solving on the gameplay networking and backend server components.

Source: Playstation 3 News

Previous News

BioShock Trilogy and Movie Confirmed

This thread is intended for all information regarding Bioshock Two, anyone may post information and I will make sure to keep the first post up to date with links and whatnot. Oh and please make sure any information you post has a source, otherwise it will not be included.

Credit for the Thread Header: Phoenix Flame


This message was edited by Lifesapper on Feb 01 2009.

Recent News

quote Bioshock Trilogy Confirmed

It was a short three months ago that Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick officially revealed the second installment in 2K Boston's Ayn Rand-inspired undersea dystopian shooter franchise BioShock. As noted at that time by Zelnick during a post-earnings conference call with investors and analysts, Take-Two's newly formed 2K Marin studio would take the reins from Ken Levine's 2K Boston outfit for the follow-up to the award-winning shooter.

Three months on, and Zelnick is once again talking BioShock. In a conference call following the publisher's GTAIV-bolstered fiscal second quarter financial report, Zelnick teased the existence of a third installment in the acclaimed franchise. In response to a question concerning the Gore Verbinski-helmed theatrical release of BioShock, Zelnick said that the movie's release is more likely to fall in proximity to BioShock 3, rather than BioShock 2.

"It's unlikely that the picture would be released to coincide with BioShock 2," said Zelnick. "It would be more likely that it would be released coincidentally with BioShock 3. That also remains to be seen."

Exact time frames, he noted, have yet to be hammered out, however. BioShock 2 is due out sometime during the August-October quarter of 2009, and platforms for the title have not yet been confirmed. In the wake of impressive sales last October, Zelnick said BioShock was "a very important franchise" for Take-Two and that "roughly an every-three-year [release] schedule would be optimal" for new installments.

In early May, Take-Two announced that it had signed on Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski to direct the film adaptation of BioShock and that Academy Award-nominated writer John Logan (Aviator, The Time Machine) was in talks with Universal Studios to pen the screenplay. Further details--such as an anticipated release window or casting decisions--were not revealed at that time.

Source: GameSpot

Pretty interesting really, it sort of confirms the fact that the games will share some sort of plot. I hope the games aren't a let down, Bioshoch was sweet and if they ruin it....

Recent News

Multiplayer for Bioshock

News Source: Playstation 3 News

Looks like we could be in for a real treat here, if the source is reliable of course. We will just have to wait for further information.

Teaser website was created:

Something In The Sea.com

quote Source

• You're a Big Daddy, and you get to use the drill and rivet gun. And you can use plasmids too. You can take little sisters from other Big Daddies and take them around Rapture to collect ADAM like you see happening in BioShock 1.

quote Source

The Big Daddy drill takes the place of the wrench. Can spin, but overheats so you can't run it constantly. You can do the Big Daddy charging shoulder bash. You can heal your hacked turrets/camera bots. Incinerate upgrades let you throw fireballs and shoot a stream of fire. Cyclone trap can be hit with incinerate and become a flaming cyclone trap. Upgrade trees are more diverse to give you more unique options.

quote Source

• It's 10 years since the first game. The Big Sister returns to rapture, bringing back the Little Sisters with her. You play as the original Big Daddy. You can use the drill, the rivet gun, and you can still use plasmids.

quote Source

• Little Sisters have been given a new look to be less creepy, as you're seeing them from the eyes of their protectors. You don't get your own Little Sister from the start, as you're a renegade Big Daddy. So you fight other Big Daddies to get your own sister. You can still harvest them, but the other option has been changed to "adopt" instead of rescue. If you adopt the sister, she'll ride on your shoulders, and you can go around Rapture looking for corpses for her to collect ADAM from. When your sister goes to harvest ADAM, a wave of Splicers will come and start attacking to try and harvest her. You have to hold them off until she finishes harvesting. You gain some ADAM from this, but not enough to tide you through the game. You can permanently rescue them, but the article doesn't say how.

quote Source

• The Big Sister is one of the surviving little sisters from the last game. She's the new ruler of Rapture, and is the main antagonist of the game. With each Big Daddy you kill, the game lets you know how close you are to incurring the wrath of the Big Sister. When you do, the little sister you're with will sing a song about how the Big Sister doesn't want you playing with her, then you get jumped.

quote Source

• Other info: Vita Chambers return, there is confirmed multiplayer(no details), audio logs are back, and Fontaine Futuristics is a level in the game.

Source

New Ign preview. Some stuff I haven't seen before about the vita system chamber, sounds like it's not going to be the easy, instant reset it used to be, which I for one
think is good. A bit more challenge

quote 2K guy at IGN

"In BioShock 1 you saw them walking around very slowly. In Bio 2 you're this kind of balanced hybrid which is not nearly as beefy as the other Big Daddies but…you're not slow in any way."

Good, I was a bit worried about being lumbering and slow, hated the idea.

Well, if you think about it, a Big Daddy is only lumbering and slow when it's docile. If you attack it, it can go almost twice as fast as you (in the first one), meaning they have the means to be fast. Since you're a rebelling ex-prototype Big Daddy you aren't exactly bound by the same rules the other Big Daddy's are, so you can still move at the speed they move when hostile at any time you want, having free thought and all. (apologies for discussing in an information thread Dx)

Via Gamegrep. (sorry, 1up isn't loading so the outgoing link isn't working, hit in when you get there and hopefully it works)

Like me, you undoubtedly have more questions. It would seem that these small first details are just enough to get the curiosity wheels turning. And while I pray BioShock 2's twist ending, if there is to be a twist ending, remains a secret until I can take my first journey through this narrative-driven sequel, I'm anxious to find out more about Rapture 10-years later, and all the new characters we can expect to find there. When asked about the good-guy-who-is-a-bad-guy template, Thomas dodges the question, saying he wants you to mistrust everyone. He does, however, mention that your "long term decisions do play into the ending," and that you'll be able "to see it coming." He continues, "This time around the decisions centered around Little Sisters have a Little Sister-centric component of the ending. Meanwhile, the decisions you make on the adult characters, the more grey characters, who may tempt you in different ways, affect the ending on a more adult axis." Does this mean BioShock 2 will have modal endings? I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

On a lark, I asked Thomas about the stunning blue butterfly at the end of the Sea of Dreams teaser trailer. He sing-songingly teases: "Can't tell you!" Will it be the "grand unifying theory," with its solitary emergence from the once submerged barnacle a signifier of what's to come, or is it merely a red herring? More sinister yet, is the butterfly the game's ultimate boss villain? After all, no one ever suspects the butterfly...

Temporary Box Shot.

Source Ign

BioShock 2's Big Daddy unveiled in July 2009 GamePro

FIRST IMAGE: BioShock 2's Big Daddy has an all-new design, revealed here for the first time. GamePro's July 2009 issue is loaded with 12 pages of worldwide exclusive BioShock 2 information and analysis, including more images of the new Big Daddy and a comprehensive multiplayer report.

GamePro's July 2009 issue is jam-packed with BioShock 2 exclusives, including five pages of new details on the multiplayer mode and fresh insights into the game's mysterious storyline and chief villain (and no, it ain't the Big Sister).

But here, for the first time, GamePro unveils the new character design for this prototype Big Daddy, who you will control in BioShock 2's new single-player experience. As the original Big Daddy prototype, you're faster and more versatile in combat than the lumbering brutes you battled in the first game. Between the arm-mounted power drill, the punishing Rivet Gun, and a new arsenal of Plasmid powers, this new Big Daddy is one tough cookie.

But enough talk! Below, feast your eyes on the first public image of BioShock 2's new Big Daddy design. Then pick up the July 2009 issue of GamePro to see more new images and concept art, new HD screenshots, and a huge analysis of BioShock 2's new multiplayer mode (a prequel to the first BioShock).


The July 2009 issue of GamePro is loaded with BioShock 2 secrets, including the Big Daddy's primary motivation, as well as first analysis of BioShock 2's new online multiplayer.





Source

Playing as Big Daddy in Bioshock 2:



Speculated Release Date of Game: February 9, 2010


This message was edited by Sonic Wave on Oct 30 2009.

BioShock 2 Pre-Order Reveals Multiplayer Characters
Two exclusive characters for those who slap down the cash early.
by Jim Reilly

August 10, 2009 - A poster on 2K's forums (via Kokugamer) uncovered photos of Gamestop's pre-order bonus plans for BioShock 2, which apparently includes two exclusive multiplayer characters.

Players will get Zigo The Fisherman, and Blanche, The Actress. Unfortunately, the pictures posted are very small. But they do look legitimate.

Gamestop's SKU listing for the game has not been updated to reflect this. So it's possible this is a pre-order that was planned before the game got delayed into 2010. So don't run out to Gamestop just yet.

We're checking in with 2K to see if they can confirm this.
Source=IGN.

Hands-On: Big Sisters Are Watching in BioShock 2

Seasteading didn’t quite work out for libertarian ideologue Andrew Ryan in BioShock, the creepy game released in 2007 to widespread acclaim. Ryan’s underwater utopia collapsed, thanks in part to genetic enhancements that gave superhuman powers to the denizens of Rapture, turning it into a saltwater kill zone.

In BioShock 2, one of the most anticipated game sequels ever, you awake eight years after the original left off. You’re missing all your memories but you know what you are: a Big Daddy, one of the giant, metal-suited monstrosities that kept order in Rapture before the fall.

Who are you? Where’s your Little Sister? Plenty of obstacles float between you and the truth. Drugged-out Splicers still roam the city, and there’s a new antagonist: a hard-left propagandist who believes in collectivism by any means necessary. And she’s got an army of Big Sisters aimed at taking you down.

Wait a minute. Big Sisters?

There’s been a major change to the sequel’s story line since the last time we looked at BioShock 2. Originally, the central character was Big Sister, one of the creepy little enslaved girls from the first game that had come back to Rapture with a hidden agenda.



BioShock 2 no longer focuses on a single Big Sister; instead, a small army of pissed-off ladies in metal suits will stalk you throughout the game.


Big Sister was envisioned as something like Terminator’s T-1000: a nearly impossible-to-defeat enemy that would stalk the player throughout the game. BioShock 2 lead level-designer J.P. LeBreton says that this idea was scrapped for reasons that had to do with both the gameplay and the story line.

“In the game, when the player defeats a Big Daddy, they get that satisfaction, that reward,” he says. “What we didn’t want was a scripted story boss to show up every level without fail and then run away, and constantly deny you that.”

As for how the increase in number of Big Sisters will affect the game’s story when BioShock 2 arrives in 2010 (it’s slated for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on Feb. 9), 2K Games isn’t saying anything.

The company’s silence is for the best. For many of us who played the first game, the wholly unexpected plot twists proved to be its strongest and most compelling aspect.

For all its tangled narrative strings, BioShock’s most profound climactic moment didn’t have much of anything to do with Randian objectivism or the relative merits of saving or harvesting creepy barefoot children. It was when we found out that our main character was a puppet, following all the hypnotic suggestions of the game’s antagonist.

In that moment, the medium became the message: BioShock drove home the point that as videogame players, even in a game that leads us to believe that we are making autonomous choices, we’re still just doing whatever the game tells us to, killing whoever we’re told to kill, just as long as it tells us to in such a way that we never question it.

Can BioShock 2 pull off that feat again? Our somewhat limited hands-on experience with the sequel isn’t about to answer that question. What it did show is that we’re about to get another taste of Rapture’s ruined underwater paradise, with all the highly detailed scenery and trappings that made exploring it such a chilling pleasure last time.

From the first loading screen — in which the snappy, upbeat lyrics of 1940s period music stands in sharp contrast to the oppressive gloom and decay — you know you’re back. The BioShock 2 demo saw us exploring Ryan Amusements, a learning museum for the children of Rapture. In true Ryan style, it’s actually a propaganda pit: It teaches children all about the oppressive world of big government and welfare, to thoroughly scare the crap out of them in the hopes that they’ll never want to leave the city.

If you’d just like to blaze through the museum and finish the mission, you can. But BioShock 2 is filled with lots of extra story for players who want it. Throughout the game, you’ll find audio diaries left by citizens that will flesh out various aspects of the story. In this particular level, you’ll be able to stop at all the museum exhibits and watch as the animatronic robots act out little scenes, telling the story of how Rapture was built and fleshing out Ryan’s political philosophies.




Big Sisters don't like you gallavanting around with Little Sisters, and they will come and find you.

Of course, Ryan isn’t in charge anymore (the last game’s main character beat him to death with a golf club). The antagonist this time is Dr. Sophia Lamb. She’s as hard-core as Ryan about her political ideology, but at the other extreme.

Lamb’s brought back the Big Daddies and Little Sisters into Rapture, and they’re all part of her plan. As a rogue Big Daddy with free will, you’ll end up having to fight your brainwashed brothers, because you’re the wrench in Lamb’s plan. You weren’t supposed to still be around.

In fact, your Little Sister is a big part of whatever Lamb’s cooking up. Her followers have built churches in Rapture, all devoted to worshiping your Little Sister, who they believe will lead them to salvation. “She’s gotten a hook into people’s minds in a very different way than Ryan did,” LeBreton says.

Meanwhile, there’s Sinclair, a guy in your earpiece on the radio who’s telling you what you need to do to keep progressing in the game. BioShock players know not to trust people like this, but for now, he’s all you’ve got.

“Sinclair is this guy who contacts you early on because he realizes that you and he have a common interest,” says LeBreton. “Friendly but sort of shady, he’s part of this organization that gets stuff done no matter the costs ethically. He’s a pragmatist who sits in contrast with the other characters of the world,” who are ideologues.

As the demo begins, Sinclair lets you know that if you’re going to escape the propaganda playground, you’ll need the Incinerate power. Plasmids, the aforementioned suite of genetic enhancements, are again a big part of BioShock’s first-person shooter gameplay. As a Big Daddy, you’ve got a couple of awesome built-in weapons. There’s your massive drill-hand, which you can use to charge enemies and put big holes in them, but it requires fuel. And there’s your rivet gun. But you’ll also need to splice your genes to do things like throwing fire or freezing people into blocks of solid ice.

Before you get hooked up with Incinerate, you’ll need to creep through the museum, taking out the insane Splicers that still roam the halls, finding audio diaries, listening to Sinclair’s and Lamb’s rantings and generally soaking up the atmosphere.

BioShock isn’t specifically a horror game, but the original had some great cheap, scary moments. So did this demo: At one point, while exploring the women’s bathroom (what, like that’s not the first thing you do in any game?), I looked up from a toilet stall to see, perfectly outlined in a flickering shadow, a Splicer with an ax raised, ready to strike. I wheeled around frantically, having not seen it coming.

What you’ll always see coming are the monstrous Big Daddies. As with the previous game, until you attack them, they won’t hurt you. So when you see one gallivanting about with his Little Sister, you’ll have time to prepare by healing yourself and buying ammunition from the vending machines that are scattered about the world.

Like in the last game, you can “hack” any of these machines to give yourself lower prices. This mechanic has been totally changed — instead of playing an occasionally lengthy puzzle game, you play a very short, timing-based game in which you attempt to stop a fast-moving needle in the green area of a gauge. Hit green and the hack is successful; hit red and you’ll just damage yourself in the attempt. Hit the very small blue areas and you’ll get a bonus.




Even though you're a Big Daddy yourself, fights against your hulking brethren are going to be some of the toughest encounters in BioShock 2.


Once you take down a Big Daddy, you have the choice of either adopting or harvesting his Little Sister. This isn’t as simple a choice as in the last game, because if you decide to adopt her, you’ll actually have to accompany her around the level as she gathers more Adam, the extremely important substance that lets you upgrade your genetic abilities.

This means finding a dead body and protecting your Little Sister for a short span of time while she goes to work. At this point, you’ll want to use some of the booby traps in your arsenal, like “trap rivets” that will explode on contact with invading Splicers who want the Adam for themselves. This adds a different gameplay mechanic, one in which the enemies won’t stop coming and you can’t leave your position until the harvest is done.

If all this sounds like a bit too much to deal with, you can just harvest the Little Sister, killing her and taking her Adam. But BioShock has a way of causing bad moral choices like that to come back and bite you in the ass later.

Either way, Lamb doesn’t like you being involved with her Little Sisters: No matter what you do, a Big Sister is going to eventually come after you. You don’t get extra time to prepare for these fights, and the Big Sisters are faster, stronger and more deadly than any Big Daddy. They’ll jump around the level and raise hell while you’re desperately trying to take them down.

If you see a Big Daddy in a multiplayer game, your team must work together to take him down.



After our 90 minutes in the world of BioShock 2’s single-player game, we got to try the new multiplayer mode. This is something of a persistent online experience — rather than just jumping in and playing a few matches, you’re actually building up your character’s array of weapons and Plasmids every time you play. The next time you jump in, you’ll be more powerful.

We saw three different types of multiplayer. Two of them, deathmatch and team deathmatch, probably don’t need to be described. You can create custom “loadouts,” combining the different gear and abilities at your disposal, then swap between these sets every time you die, which will probably be pretty often.

Some abilities let you recharge your health faster, or dash and jump away from enemies with superhuman speed. The original BioShock’s “research” mechanic, in which you take photographs of dead enemies, makes a return here. Taking a picture of a corpse from another team lets you get a damage bonus on them once they’ve respawned.

The most interesting multiplayer mode thus far is a variation on Capture the Flag, but what you’re capturing is a Little Sister. Each round, one team tries to capture the Little Sister while the other tries to defend her.

The team on defense will begin each round with a random member appearing as a Big Daddy. And unless this person is a total stupid idiot, you’ll have to band together with your team to kill him before you even attempt to take the Little Sister, as the Big Daddy will pretty much always be able to stop anyone from getting near her if he stays by her and protects her.

I can’t say I’m entirely sold on the idea: Multiplayer mode in BioShock seems like it was added purely for marketing concerns, as if the game wouldn’t sell enough as a purely single-player experience. If it gets the sequel into more people’s hands, that’s probably worth it. But from my time with both modes, single-player seems like the big draw for BioShock 2.

My favorite part of that single-player demo was the moment that you learn about the Incinerate power. When you finally get your hands on Incinerate, there’s a little sequence, like something out of Disney’s Tomorrowland, that teaches you about the wondrous things you can do around the house with the ability to throw flames.

A nuclear family of mannequins sits around a fireplace. Just ignite the wood and give them a nice toasty fire, says the tinny voice over the PA. So I do, but unfortunately the little window display has fallen apart and been vandalized over the years. Specifically, an oil spill in front of the fireplace catches ablaze and lights the whole family on fire, burning the mannequins to a blackened crisp.

It’s a perfectly BioShock moment: A tutorial for how to use a vital gameplay mechanic that simultaneously fleshes out the story while delivering a bit of commentary on the unintended consequences of progress.

If 2K can keep that level of subtlety and surprise up throughout the whole game, it could have a worthy follow-up on its hands.

+Source

BioShock 2 Multiplayer Impressions

It's like capture the flag, but with a flag that kicks and screams.
by Charles Onyett

November 5, 2009 - It's admittedly still a little odd to think of BioShock as a multiplayer experience considering such a component wasn't part of the original, but it's being presented as a significant piece of the upcoming sequel. Instead of just tossing together a few deathmatch modes, the suite appears to be packed with features, including a progressive level up system, character customization, and game mechanics tailored to the BioShock universe.

As you probably know if you've been following along, in BioShock 2 you play as a Big Daddy. Well, that's not something that carries over into its online sections. Instead, the setting for the multiplayer part of the game is a time period even before the events of the first game, when people were running rampant in Rapture and genetically modifying themselves with little to no regard for personal safety. You can pick a character model (a welder, a housewife, a football player, and more) and then pick and choose which weapons and plasmids to bring into battle with you. Other options include swapping out different masks (goat, pink feather, rabbit, eagle, the list goes on) and picking between a variety of melee weapons including trophies, wrenches, and candlesticks.


One of gaming's stranger relationships.

The more you participate in multiplayer matches, the more you unlock in terms of weapons, plasmids, and tonics that provide passive bonuses. Regarding the weapons, they're similar to what you saw in the first BioShock. You'll can't bring every weapon into a fight, so you'll need to pick between a machine gun, shotgun, pistol, crossbow, grenade launcher, and a new nail gun. It's also possible to slot in weapon modifications, bestowing bonuses like increased magazine size or an increased rate of fire.

Loadouts and modifications can be set up on a menu before diving into a match so you'll be able to take the time to consider how to match up abilities with your play style. For plasmids, you'll have the standard assortment of abilities like electrobolt and incinerate, as well as something called aero dash which lets you surge forward at high speed and, if you make contact with a frozen target, break them to pieces. It's also possible to set to active a geyser trap plasmid which can send foes flying into the ceiling when it's triggered, or can serve as a jump pad. Tonics like security evasion, eve saver, and expert researcher can also be slotted in to make you more effective in combat.

Once you're done fiddling around with all those customization settings and are ready to jump into a match, you'll find a number of modes, including the standard deathmatches and team deathmatches along with something called Capture the Sister, which is like capture the flag. One team is on offense, the other on defense, and it's the attackers' job to grab the Little Sister the defenders are protecting and carry her to an extraction point. The hook is that one of the defenders is turned into a Big Daddy, who can absorb a lot of damage and quickly wipe out attackers with a rivet gun. As a result, the defenders need to be clever about taking advantage of all the multiple passages through a map to get shots at the Big Daddy to take him out and grab the Little Sister before he respawns. Then if you're the one who manages to scoop up the Little Sister, who scowls and screams in your arms as you proceed to the exit vent, you'll be limited to only plasmid use to defend yourself, so obviously working as a team will help out.


Shoot, shock and roast your opposition online, and steer clear of the Big Daddies.

As for the feel of the game, like BioShock it's not really about precision shooting as much as it is about using your arsenal intelligently. If you've got incinerate active, for instance, maybe the best idea is to sit back and light your enemies on fire from a distance to soften them up for teammates who may be charging in to make a capture. If you're the one running directly at the enemy, electrobolt may be a better idea since it can stun your foes and give you a few extra seconds to grab the Sister and get out of there. To help out you'll also be able to photograph dead bodies of players, which can give you subsequent damage bonuses, as well as hack into any turrets or dispenser machines in the map. In the deathmatch modes you'll also be able to pick up a periodically spawning Big Daddy suit that temporarily transforms you into one of the armored giants, letting you easily wipe out a number of foes to drive up your score. Once a match is over you'll then be awarded points that'll level up your profile and unlock more gear.

While it's difficult to say at this point whether or not BioShock 2's multiplayer component will catch on with the community, from what I've seen it seems to be well put together. As Battlefield 2 or Call of Duty 4 players will know, the unlock system isn't particularly unique, but the setting and weapon combinations could help it stand out. The game's release date is currently set at February 9, 2010 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platforms.

Source+

Background piece on the New rapture fro IGN

quote IGN

This type of narrative development trickles down into the types of encounters you can expect to experience while playing through. "The splicers are divided in two different ways. On the mechanical side, you've got the old generation splicers who are way tougher than anything you faced in BioShock 1…Rapture is much more dangerous because of those first-generation guys who have been splicing ever since. Then there are the newbies who've just gotten their first taste of Adam who survived or came from somewhere else, and those guys are just beginning to fall. Now they're also separated ideologically. There's the Rapture family who follows Sophia Lamb and who basically get their Adam distributed on the drip evenly between the people. And then there are the rogue splicers who have fallen off the wagon and who don't work with Lamb and will hunt down Little Sisters on their own and for whom the Big Sisters were created to hunt."......

Beyond new villains and adversaries, a number of other factors are being built into the setting. "The environments are pretty radically different. As you go deeper and deeper into the game, they go from something like Ryan Amusements to a very different take on paradise. And all of the Adam that's in the ocean has started to seep in and affect the sea life, and so you'll see the result of that as well as you find areas that have been reclaimed by the sea. In terms of the tone of fear, as a Big Daddy there are lots of things in Rapture 10 years later that can destroy you. The Rapture in BioShock 2 is much meaner. For me, anyway, BioShock is as much tragedy as it is any kind of ghost story or tale of fear. What I'm targeting is more of a kind of moral horror, that as a Big Daddy with free will you're very different from Jack in BioShock 1 and we want to celebrate that free will and hopefully get you to look at your responsibility and have a moment of chilled introspection."